


After Dark

by traineeghostcop



Category: Buzzfeed Unsolved (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Edwardian, Mild Gore, Mystery, Tags May Change, because i don't wanna give away a lot, cos guess what?, i'm not entirely sure what to categorise this other than "mystery", it's a mystery, surprise! the worth it boys are here too
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-19
Updated: 2018-01-08
Packaged: 2019-02-17 03:03:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 13,746
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13067769
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/traineeghostcop/pseuds/traineeghostcop
Summary: The year was 1901, and the moon turned red. That night would be the first of many, where normal people turn into mindless savages and the streets run red with blood. The Blood Moon would continue to rise, night after night, and fear would rule the town.The year is 1906, and two strangers thrown together by circumstance will hunt down the truth before it swallows them whole.But how do you find the truth, when the truth prefers to remain...





	1. The Man From Nowhere

**Author's Note:**

> This was based on an idea from SomeWeirdNerd! She's got some great stuff, go check it out! She's also extremely sweet and supportive, and without her massive encouragement the completion of this large project would not have been possible. Many thanks!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In which Shane runs.

 

_Fact 1: Sara died._

_Fact 2: Shane ran._

 

That is how he chooses to remember it. Sara was once alive, and now she is not. Shane was once in his room asleep, and now he is not. These are the facts, and in future, when Shane inevitably peers back through his mind's eye at tonight, this is what he chooses to see.

Not the screaming mob. Not the flashing knives and sharpened axes. Not the terrifying prospect that his last memory of Sara (sweet, beautiful Sara, whose smile put the sunrise to shame) is the urgency in her voice as she pleaded for him to _stay in the house, I'll hold them off, I’m immune to the Light, please, I can't let you do this, I'll buy us some time and we'll be okay, I love you so much Shane I—_

And most definitely not the fleeting glimpse of her mauled, eyeless corpse sprawled in the ditch as he fled barefoot into the night.

Something slices Shane's feet for the umpteenth time, and he stumbles, slipping on the slick cobblestone path. His heart lurches and he's panting, blood thrumming through his ears as he runs blindly through the twisting back-alleys. Nothing much really registers at this point; Shane's clutching the blanket tight over his head, barely able to make out the silhouettes of the buildings around him, the muddy glow of the street lamps and the way _everything_ is soaked in the Blood Moon's nauseating nauseating crimson light. Blessedly, the moonlight barely seeps through the thick blanket, and whatever light does, only makes Shane frantic— still, it’s infinitesimally better than the pure, feral rage it drenches anyone and everyone with.

He hates it. Stupid, _stupid_ fucking Blood Moon. He's sick of it, so _fucking sick_ of watching perfectly logical people turn into primal, murderous beasts, sick of the bloodless corpses piled in the streets every morning. He's sick of the fact that all he's ever known is being too scared to even sleep at night because he knows that without fail, the Blood Moon will rise and he knows all too well what kind of monster he'll inevitably become, just like everyone else, just like everyone he's ever given half a shit about. It's too much, far, _far_ too much, and the only person who's ever been able to soothe his eyes closed is Sar—

_Oh god._

Everything crashes upon Shane at once.

There's his feet, livid and clawed open by the jagged cobblestones, white-hot pain rocketing through his legs with every step. He feels the biting winter air tearing through the blanket and his pyjamas and forcing its way into his bones, only made worse by the way his overexerted lungs drag knives through his chest with every breath.

Tears are slipping down his face too, Shane belatedly realises, as his breath hitches, cracks, and suddenly everything's too much, _too goddamn much,_ and sobs are clawing their way through his exhausted body. And he stops, standing in the middle of the street. Shane dimly realised that this might just get him killed, but at this point, it's really no loss. To no one in particular, he begs.

"Please— somebody, just— just make this fucking stop for-- for one _fucking_ second, please?"

But the clouds are still soaked red; in the distance, the city centre still echoes with screams and chanting.

And nothing is good, everything is dark and bloodstained and just _far, far too much._

Shane can't put one foot in front of the other anymore. That's a fact his brain supplies as his legs wobble, buckle and send him careening face-first into a steel lamppost.

 _Goddamnit,_ Shane thinks as his vision tunnels into darkness.

 

* * *

 

 _Goddamnit,_ Shane thinks as the glaring sunlight sends shockwaves of nausea through his skull.

Wait, sunlight? 

Far too quickly, he rockets upright, and bright spots sparkle before his eyes. _Bad idea._ But as they disappear, Shane takes in his surroundings.

He's in a— he doesn't know where he is.

He's sitting on a cot, smelling old but vaguely nice, pushed into the corner of the room. The sunlight beams through a window, streaking the floorboards with gold. Across the room, what looks like a desk is almost completely shrouded in stationery and manuscripts. Beyond the foot of the cot there’s a tiny kitchenette with a tornado-swept mess of pots and pans strewn all over the place. Nearby, there’s a faded velvet couch, a wire enclosure (probably for a dog or cat), a crude dining table and four chairs. Giant sheets of parchment are tacked onto the walls, covered in scrawls, ink blots and impressively detailed diagrams of...the moon?

 _What the heck?_  

"Oh, hey! You're alive!"

In a decidedly undignified moment of panic, Shane grabs the nearest object he can find and _swings._

"Ah! Shit! Watch it, man!"

And Shane finally takes a proper look at his assailant. His surprisingly unassuming assailant, who's clutching a dented steel bowl ( _that smells like heaven_ , his stomach chimes in), frowning at a fresh soup-coloured splotch on his shirt.

"Sorry," Shane manages.

"It's fine, I got a new one yesterday anyway," the stranger smiles at him, and _\-- oh god--_ he's painfully young, at once both chiselled and soft, beaming at him with the brightest chestnut eyes Shane's ever seen in his life. The high-noon sun dips and flows along the stranger’s handsome features, smoothing a rose-gold glow over his tanned skin and--

Shane doesn't realise he's staring quite soon enough.

“Hey, uh, you okay there? I figured you might be hungry, but if you’re not then that’s alright, I just-- thought I should give this to you before Micki and Dori get to it first, you know how they get when it’s lunchtime…” the stranger trails off shyly, chewing his lip.

“Oh, no, of course I’d love some! Man, I’m starving and it smells great, of course I’d love it!” Shane takes the proffered bowl, smiling as best as he can through the cavernous gnawing in his stomach. In silence, Shane downs half the bowl, practically shoving his face into the steaming soup. There’s a little too much salt and his brain comes up empty when he tries to identify the odd chunks of _something_ in it, but he’s famished and the soup still tastes amazing and damn his stupid, _stupid_ brain because now instead of the stranger and the room he sees _Sar--_

_A couple screams with laughter, racing down the hallway._

_The man is covered in mushroom soup and what could be minor burns from when the pot exploded. His lengthy, gangly limbs carry him down the hall quickly, but the woman isn’t too far behind. Both the wooden ladle she wields and her unruly curls are slick with the soupy gunk, eyes crinkled in a giggle that sparkles like the ocean at noon._

_The man turns around to make a face at the woman, but in the flurry of adrenaline his limbs tangle and he’s toppling to the ground like a giant, felled tree. Suddenly, the woman’s eyes widen in concern and at once she’s leaning over him, work-worn hands clutching his shoulders._

_She’s beautiful, the man absently thinks. Despite the huge bump on his head, he beams up at the woman and he’s happy-- really, truly happy. Sunlight streams through the open window and for a moment, he wonders if he’s staring an angel in the face._

_“Oh my gosh, I’m so sorry! Are you okay? Hey, you with me? Ar--_

\--e you okay man? I-- do you-- do you need to lie down?” Anxious brown eyes meet his and suddenly Shane’s acutely aware of the scratchy blanket over his lap, the worn cot, the rustling of parchment on the walls and the _drip, drip, drip_ of hot tears past his heaving chest, into the soup bowl. A hand grips his shoulder and another unfurls Shane’s shaking fingers, easing the bowl away. There’s a dull clink as the bowl rests on a nearby stool. He lets the stranger gently push him to lie down, slightly disappointed when the warm fingers nervously withdraw from his bicep. _God, he’s a fucking mess._

“Fuck,” Shane laughs, and it’s weak, humourless and terribly unconvincing. Still, the stranger offers a small, comforting smile from where he’s now sitting cross-legged on the floor.

“Rough night?”

Shane scoffs, but only because he doesn’t know what to say.

“I’m sorry,” the stranger says, and Shane would have found the man’s almost _incessant talking_ annoying if he could ignore the sincerity simmering behind those damned doe-eyes.

Shane never found himself to be a particularly strong man.

“No, it’s fine. I’m-- I’ll be fine.” Sighing, he runs a hand through his hair, discovering two neatly-cut bandages criss-crossing his forehead. Wiggling his toes, he finds them cocooned in bandages. _Huh._ There’s silence again, then: “You saved my life.”

Shrugging, the stranger replies, “Andrew saw you keel over in the street, man, and I couldn’t just _leave you there_ , not with the Blood Moon and everything...anyway, it’s not like I get visitors very often.”

“Shane.”

“Who?”

Shane inhales. Shane exhales.

“Me. That’s-- that’s my name.”

“Your-- _oh_...I’m Ryan.”

“Quite a place you have here, _Ryan_ ,” Shane hums.

“Oh, it’s not actually mine, it’s Andrew’s. He runs the bakery downstairs and lives on the floor above it. He didn’t have any use for the attic though, so he let me live here when my family--” Ryan trails off, frowning.

“Passed?” Shane says gently.

“Kicked me out.”

“Oh.”

 _Shit,_ Shane thinks as Ryan starts picking at the threads on his sleeves silently with an unreadable expression. “Well, uh, aren’t you gonna show me around? Give me a proper tour? Ooh, hey, is that a map of the stars or something?” The pounding rush of blood to his head isn’t as bad this time as Shane swings his legs over the edge of the bed. Wiggling his toes to get some of the feeling back into his feet, Shane hobbles to the opposite wall.

“Hey, no-- shouldn’t you be resting? Or something?” Ryan hurries after Shane, who’s already gaping at the expanse of charts pinned to the walls.

“Not until you tell me what all this is!”

Ryan sighs. “It’s the Blood Moon. I’m trying to find out what it is.”

“I’m sure I can give you an answer,” Shane quirks an eyebrow, gesturing at the bandages on his head. Ryan pouts upwards at Shane, petulant but oddly endearing 

“No, I mean-- I’m trying to study it and find out why it does what it does. How it works. Ever since I learned how, I’ve been charting the positions of the stars and the moon whenever the Blood Moon rises. And there--” he points at a series of five near-identical charts, each with a hand-drawn grid littered with _X_ ’s, “I’ve recorded every single occurrence of the Blood Moon, ever since _t= 0,_ February 1901. And there, I extrapolated--”

“Did you just say ‘ _Feb-ee-yary’_?”

“I--what? No! I said Febyu-- Febrer-- _Feb...yew..--_ ” He’s annoyed again, Shane can tell, and _boy_ is that the mos _t amusing_ thing on the planet. “Are you seriously telling me that’s _all_ you got out of that?”

Shane shrugs. “No, I just don’t get why you’re so invested in picking apart a meteorological anomaly--”

“ _Meteorological anomaly?!”_ Ryan’s voice rises a pitch (or five), and Shane gets the mental image of a _very tiny_ teapot lividly whistling with steam. “Shane, people have been _dying_ every night for five years. And not just dying, but dying at the hands of bookkeepers, librarians, governesses, teachers and nurses. Perfectly good people have been murdering their friends and their family and I _can’t watch this anymore_. There’s something going on, I swear, because good people don’t just-- just _do that_.”  

Levelly, Shane says, “Well, sure they can. They’re _people_. Heck, a bunch’a people in France danced till they died in the 1500’s. Ya know why? Because they were _people._ And sometimes, _people_ are batshit.” And, if only to derive petty satisfaction from watching Ryan _fume_ : “You of all people should know that.”

And it works, apparently, because Ryan’s levelling (well, _almost_ levelling, because Shane’s got a whole _head’s_ height on the man) him a look that’s positively _murderous_. “First off, I’m one-hundred percent sure that you’re just making that up. And secondly, everything I’m doing is based on concrete evidence and observations. I’ve spent _years_ researching and-- and _combing_ through every single paper on astronomy I can find! And you’re just gonna call the guy that _saved your life and is_ currently _housing you_ batshit?!”

“Yes I am, _Prince Charming_ ,” Shane narrows his eyes, and he should know better than to take his own bait, but heat rises all the way from his throbbing feet to the set in his jaw, because _who the fuck does this man think he is_. “People are batshit. It’s probably a meteorological anomaly that triggers a psychosomatic _thingy_! I’m saying that Blood Moon or none, people do shitty things--”

“But I’ve got a ton of evidence that _clearly correlates t--”_

“Well, that’s great news, _Sherlock Holmes_ , I’m glad to hear that at least _one_ of us has been having a fun time these five years. Because I’m not sure if you’ve heard, but every morning there are _dead people_ in the streets!” Shane’s almost certain he’s yelling. His feet have started to _burn_ , and wetness pools behind his eyes again. Still, _Her_ face, with blue lips and mauled eye sockets, flashes through the back of his brain.

And _fuck_ if he knows why he’s taking it out on a total stranger, but Shane adds frigidly: “So if you feel like a hero for running around playing detective while people are _dying_ , and for not letting me just fucking _die_ like everyone else, then yes, _Ryan,_  I’m calling you batshit.”

In the background, the parchment rustles maddeningly.

Ryan stares at him, not quite hurt, not quite _anything,_ really; just stares as his jaw works. Guilt bubbles in Shane’s chest as he watches a door slam behind Ryan’s eyes. _Shit._

Finally, the silence breaks as Shane’s feet cease to work altogether, and his knees seize up. With a whispered swear word, Ryan’s slinging Shane’s arm over his shoulder before Shane collapses, half-carrying him back to the cot. Ryan doesn’t say anything, overzealously staring at the floorboards as Shane limps to the bed and eases himself down.

“Ryan, listen, I went too far, I’m s--”

“ _Don’t_. Just--” he lets out a shuddering, wet sigh, rubbing at the bridge of his nose. “I’ve got errands to run. There’s a walking cane under the bed and tea in the kettle. I--I’ll be back in an hour.”

Mutely, Shane nods. Ryan walks over to the desk, hefts a pile of books into a satchel and leaves. Shane stares at the ceiling as the afternoon sun’s glow lulls him to sleep.

In the background, the parchment rustles.

 

* * *

 

“Dinner.” Shane blinks the sleep away from his eyes, and for the second time that day, Ryan’s holding out a bowl of food at the foot of the bed. Except now, the attic was dimly lit by sparse electric lights, and whatever had shut behind Ryan’s eyes remained shut.

Shane takes the bowl, and this time it looks closer to nice pub food than chunky goop. “I’m sorry.”

His heart clenches as Ryan _still_ won’t look at him. “No, it’s-- it’s fine. I’m sorry, we barely know each other and you shouldn’t have to shack up with some-- some _crazy person_.” He swallows. Too quickly, he says, “first thing in the morning, I’ll take you back home. I’ve got a spare medical kit and bandages and stuff and…”

 _Home_ , Shane thinks, and the thought makes him want to scream. He once belonged somewhere, with someone, living a life somewhat close to normal. He has none of that anymore, though. _Sar-- She_ ’s gone and--and...  

He can’t go back there. Not now, not to the house where _Her_ blood is still splattered across the front door they carved their initials in all those years ago. It’s not _home_. It’s barely a _house;_ it’s a graveyard, and if ghosts existed they’d reside in the photographs of a too-tall man and his curly-haired sweetheart. To set foot in that house would be to claw his way into a sort of stasis that shouldn’t be disturbed, to spit on the coffin he buried half his life in. _Shane doesn’t have a home._

“I can’t, I-- I don’t have anywhere to go.” Is all he manages.

And he can’t bring himself to watch as Ryan finally _looks at him_ , not with the way he collapsed in a ditch and then snapped at the hand that pulled him out. Shane deserves to die, to have Ryan rip his innards out the way anyone else would’ve ( _but why didn’t Ryan?_ ). He doesn’t deserve the blanket, the soup and the blinding intensity with which Ryan _cares_. Still, there’s something warm in the pit of his stomach when Ryan says, “well, for as long as you need, now you do.”

When Shane’s eyes meet Ryan’s, he’s stunned for a second. Not by the way the dim electric lighting makes his chestnut irises shimmer with gold, but by the insistent strength shining behind them. It was reassuring and terrifying, and at once Shane wanted to tear away and fall in deeper.

Ryan doesn’t look away. “I just have one question.”

“Yeah?”

“Don’t you want to stop all of this?”

Shane sucks in a breath, fixing his eyes on a kerosene lamp sitting on the desk behind Ryan. His eyes are burning again.

“I do.”

“Then why don’t you want to find out how?” Ryan presses, and _god, shut up, just shut up--_

“Because I don’t think we have a choice.”

“That’s bullshit, Shane.” His voice is quiet and sharp-edged. “We do. I’m gonna find out what’s behind this, and I’m gonna stop it.”

There’s something steely in Ryan’s eyes now; gone is the warm softness Shane saw earlier, and in its place is smouldering, unshakeable resolve. And Shane wants to believe him, wants to believe that this amateur pseudo-astronomer- _whateveryoucallit_ can single-handedly put an end to the atrocity that killed _Her_ , and he thinks it might have something to do with the quiet passion and anger almost visibly thrumming through Ryan’s core. 

And yet.

He’s being a complete idiot, Shane thinks. Because Ryan’s throwing himself headfirst into a hunt for something he can’t even see, something Shane is sure has a perfectly logical (and frustrating) explanation. It’s the weather, he’s sure of it, and he’s seen enough loss and tragedy to know that when horrid things happen, trying to find a poetically grandiose explanation for it is futile. And awfully pathetic too.

Still, in spite of himself, Shane cracks a smile: “You’re gonna pick a fight with the moon?”

“If that’s what it takes.” And _god_ , Ryan grins back, and though it’s hesitant and small, Shane thinks he might like seeing Ryan smile (almost) as much as seeing indignation sizzle off his compact frame.

“Good luck with that, then. Though you’ll probably need some help reaching that high up,” he winks. 

“Shut up, Shane,” Ryan laughs, breathy and bright like the sun. 

“Always ready to help!” 

And in that moment, it’s _right_. All of it. For the first time in...well, a very long time, this moment in time is right. It’s completely illogical-- outside, there’s screaming in the streets again, the telltale slice of crimson light throwing a singular gash through Ryan’s shuttered window. But it’s safe and warm, the two of them cocooned in syrupy lamplight. Shane’s adrift now, a boat slowly bobbing from the shore. He’s got nowhere to go and nothing left to believe. But he watches two (illogically _tiny_ ) dogs bounce up to the cot, tries not to stare too hard as Ryan admonishes and coos at them, and thinks that he might be alright. (For a while.)

They eat dinner together, Shane reclining on the pillows and Ryan sitting at the foot of the bed, talking about something Shane can’t remember, though he recalls it ending in bickering. And later, as Shane watches Ryan curl up on the couch (later joined by those odd-sized dogs), he files in another fact to join the rest.

 

 _Fact 1: Sara died._  

_Fact 2: Shane ran._

_Fact 3: Ryan found him._

 

 

 


	2. Cracking Open A Cold One

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Reading, theorising, and dead people.

So. There’s a new irritant sharing his home.

Ryan thinks that might be a gross oversimplification, but that being said, there _is_ a lot of Shane, which would make simplifying the man very hard indeed.

Shane’s unnaturally tall and _extremely_ annoying. He lives in Ryan’s house, eats Ryan’s food and-- most infuriatingly-- gets along _perfectly well_ with Ryan’s dogs. The worst part is, thanks to some wonder ointment a friend of Andrew’s brewed, his feet have almost entirely healed, meaning that the gangly bastard is nearly _mobile_ too.

He’s not all bad, though. He’s (more than) adequately interesting, with a (pretty impressive) handful of (uproariously) funny jokes, and he’s also a halfway decent assistant. In a bid to stop Shane from hovering over his shoulder and making infuriating jabs at his research notes, he’s tasked Shane with helping him comb through the pile of tomes he’d pulled from the library. They’re carefully curated records of astrological predictions, oracles and prophecies made throughout history; considering how much all of the Blood Moon and its social impact resembles the Plagues of Egypt or perhaps the doomsday, Ryan reasons that this might be a perfectly logical place to start.

The man is intelligent, in a quiet and measured way, and Ryan thinks that in another life where whatever had happened to Shane didn’t happen, he might have once been a schoolteacher or a writer. Though nothing Ryan does will stop Shane from reading the florid warnings in his pompous _ye olde Englishe_ voice at inopportune moments, Shane has an undeniable attention to detail. In equal measure, the man is deft at both building and burning bridges between the pieces of information Ryan gives him. He also has an impressive bank of historical facts, which really does speed up the research process.

“Oh, how about this? 1776, ‘ _When unholy light fills the streets, darkness will fall upon good men._ ’?”

“Yeah...I don’t think so. The Industrial Revolution was...when was it? Probably around the same time.” Shane gestures with a pencil in his uniquely lackadaisical manner. “Electricity is a wild concept, Ryan. If you really think about it, you’re creating your own little-- little ball of light! Moving machines with no effort at all! I bet tons of people thought it was witchcraft or something. I bet if _you_ lived in the 1700’s, you’d be pointin’ at an electric light and screamin’ about-- about fairies or something.”

“Fairies? Seriously?”

Shane shrugs in the affirmative.

“Nah, I’d probably go, ‘Ooh, can I touch it?’ and I’ll end up losing a finger or burning my whole face off.”

“Yeah, sounds more like it!” Shane chuckles, and somehow, Ryan finds himself unable to contain a bubble of laughter. But before he can think too hard about what that might mean, Shane reaches for the next book already. “Is that the last of this one? What do we have next?”

“We have...volume seven? Oh, that’s just the appendix! Okay, then six is the last one. There’s not a lot of stuff in six…” Ryan flipped through the tome and, confirming the absence of his scrap-paper bookmarks: “Yeah, there’s nothing in six. What do you have?”

Humming, Shane skims through something he scribbled on a notepad. “Yeah, nothing here either. Are we done with this batch?”

“Yup! I’ve already picked out a bunch’a journals and field notes,” Ryan replies, ignoring Shane’s poorly-disguised groan. “I just need to return all of these, and pick up the new ones from the library by two.”

“I can help! I mean, I’m gonna go stir-crazy if I sit here any longer. Plus, those books look heavy!”

“They’re not _that_ heavy!” Ryan’s vaguely affronted. “And what about your feet?”

“Nah, I’m sure they’ll be fine! Look, I can dance now! See?” Shane hops from one foot to the other, bouncing his arms like some kind of maniacal grasshopper, and Ryan loses every ounce of composure at the sight.

“Okay, okay, stop--jeez, you’re a terrible dancer, man! Fine, you can come!” Ryan concedes, still breathless with laughter. Shane pumps his fist smugly. Ryan rolls his eyes, gathering the books on the desk. “Okay, you get the ones on the chair, and I’ll take these.”

“Aye, captain!"

“Micki! Dori! Where are you guys?” Ryan scans the room, breathing a sigh of relief as his little bundles of joy come bounding over to his feet. He scratches at their chins quickly, before unlocking the amply spacious wire pen. Micki hurries into the enclosure, curling up on the makeshift bed, while Dori pounces on a raggedy little doll. Ryan carefully locks the enclosure. “We’re going out, okay? We won’t be long, can you guys sit tight for a while?”

“They’ll be fine, mom! Now let’s go! Time’s a-tickin!”

Ryan sighs.

 

* * *

 

 

Downstairs, Andrew’s bakery is a whirlwind of activity.

As the two men descend the stairs that lead into the back-end of the kitchen, Ryan’s greeted by the familiar gush of warm saccharine air, as though they’re wading into a pool thick with molten sugar. There’s the scent of chocolate too, sinuous and inviting; tendrils of spices, candies and fruit curl through the air, twining round the crisp, golden notes of fresh bread. Andrew, as usual, is the king of his own castle; the statuesque blond is barely visible among the trays and baking equipment that tower like a city.

Still, Ryan hears a friendly, “Hey, Ryan!” shouted over the din of the kitchen, returning the greeting before ducking out the back door. Behind him, Shane crouches slightly as he exits too.

Outside, a dull wash of grey hangs over the town, from the heavy shroud of fog in the air, to the wet cobblestones that smell vaguely of blood. The overwhelming _greyness_ seeps through the walls of the boarded-up houses and paints the faces of the people, equal parts numb and anxious. And Ryan hates this _so much_ ; there’s a spectre of darkness that hangs over the town, probably kicking its legs gleefully as it sits on the edge of the rooftops, watching people drift from terror to blankness and back. It’s exhausting and every second that he spends outside is a reminder that people are giving up-- heck, the _town’s_ giving up-- and that it won’t be long before it swallows Ryan whole.

Still, Shane’s a tall, _tall_ pillar of warmth at the corner of his periphery; he’s barely compacted his lengthy frame into one of Ryan’s older jackets-- brown with a fuzzy collar-- and his chestnut coloured hair is blown feathery by the wind, hazel eyes crinkled as he takes in the crisp air. There’s something about Shane that chases the shadows from his feet and feels so undeniably _safe_ , a teacup steaming in candlelight. All of a sudden, the overwhelming greyness is tolerable.

“We live above freakin’  _Candyland_!” Comes the shout of disbelief some distance over Ryan’s head. “Ryan, we’re living on top of culinary _heaven_ , and all we’ve been eating is chunky meat-mush for a whole _week_?”

Squinting as a cold blast of wind lashes at his face, Ryan shrugs. “I never said it was _my_ bakery! Besides-- no, take a left here-- besides, I’d like to see _you_ make something even _half_ as delectable.”

“Oh, I bet I can!”

“Yeah? When’s the last time you even cooked?”

Shane hums, puffing out a cloud of steam contemplatively. “I made a _mean_ stew two weeks ago.”

“And?”

“A--nd I undercooked the sausages and threw it all up the rest of the night,” Shane finishes sheepishly, and something about that leaves Ryan breathless with laughter.

“Jesus _Christ_ , sir!”

Shane shudders and makes a face, and Ryan laughs even harder.

The pair cuts through a series of alleyways, passing washerwomen wringing out sopping laundry and grocers dragging garbage out in crates. Ryan’s gone this way more times than he can count; he’s been on enough library runs to know that walking through the cleaner main streets isn’t worth the jackasses knocking his books to the ground. It’s quieter like this, with much less elbowing involved. It’s more peaceful too, and with Shane good-naturedly sniping at him, he can almost call it enjoyable. Presently, the alley opens out into a more heavily-trafficked street, where the library sits right across the road. The pair cuts across the throng of people, waiting at the side of the road for the automobiles and carriages to pass.

“Wait, so you were on fuckin’ _Vaudeville_?!”

“No, I just wrote a double act with my friend.” Ryan huffs. “It was good stuff, okay? Tucker and I spent like, _weeks_ on it. C’mon, let’s cross here.”

Shane scoffs, briefly glancing at the traffic. “ _Weeks_? On what, exactly?”

Ryan flushes slightly. “A dance number...for Christmas.”

“For Chri-- _what the fuck!”_ Shane doubles over, almost dropping the books as he shakes with laughter. “You produced a _dance number_! What the fuck!”

“Shut up, we were like, eighteen, okay? And I’ll have you know it was absolutely _heartwarming_ , and hilarious too, and the Vaudeville casting directors actually said they were impressed, it was just that it was July and _apparently_ , they were looking for--”

“Stop.” Something swings out across Ryan’s chest, barring him from walking further and the movement is so sudden that it takes a while for Ryan to register that it’s _Shane’s hand, what the fuck?!_

“Shane, what?”

He’s silent, and when Ryan looks up questioningly, Shane’s eyes are _stone_. There’s not a trace of a smile in his eyes, and the look in Shane’s eyes is so cold that a shiver runs down his spine. He stares straight ahead, brown eyes shimmering with anger and something else, his hand still firmly splayed across Ryan’s chest.

That’s when Ryan sees the cart.

To be exact, that’s when Ryan sees the pale, bloodless limbs _sticking out of the undertaker’s cart._ It rolls by agonizingly slow, as though it’s moving through syrup, and Ryan can’t tear his eyes away. He’s transfixed in muted horror as the cart full of _dead people_ passes by languidly, like a ghost ship drifting unhurriedly through silent waters. He sees every single chip in the paintwork, the old bloodstains on the spokes of the wheels, the way the sheet-white bodies _bounce_ every time the wheels go over an odd-sized cobblestone. Ryan’s mouth goes dry, his throat constricts and _god,_ he thinks he might throw up, or cry, or both. The corpses’ limbs are pale, nearly translucent, as though every ounce of blood has been thoroughly _sucked out_. With every jerk of the cart, the limbs and necks bob stiffly in unison, in some sort of sickening greeting and _oh god_ , a leg just fucking _twitched, Ryan’s sure of it, holy fucking fuck it moved--_

“C’mon.” Shane finally speaks, more an order than anything else, and another shiver goes down Ryan’s spine. Shane’s eyes are still fixed ahead, stonily set on the small library a short distance ahead of them, but his hand goes to the curve of Ryan’s back, lightly but unmistakably pushing him towards the library’s doors.

And so Ryan walks.

The pair is silent when they duck into the library. Shane’s hand doesn’t move for a while.

 

* * *

 

 

“Oh, shit! Holy _cow_! _Ryanryanryanlookatthis!_ ”

“Oh my god, did you find something?” Ryan looks up from where he’s been hunched (absolutely _not_ dozing off) over some long-dead seer’s journal, blinking blearily.

“You bet I did! Seriously, man, look at this!” Shane’s staring bug-eyed at the book in his lap. Ryan’s left leg has fallen asleep, and needles lance through his shin as he rushes over to Shane.

“What is it, man?”

“I did it! Proof!” Shane grins, jabbing a finger at one particular entry. Ryan struggles to focus his itching eyes on the irritatingly _tiny_ text, scanning the words…

“Oh, you _dick_.”

“See? I knew you’d love it!”

“No, no, no, _no, NO--_ ”

“What?”

“We’ve been at this for like, four hours and found _nothing_ and you think this is _funny_?!”

Shane shrugs defensively. “No, I just think I’m _right_! See? The French Dancing Plague, July 1518. A woman in Strasbourg, France, suddenly began fervently dancing in the streets, a dance that would last between four to six days. Within a week, 34 others had joined her; within a month, a hundred. The cause of--”

“ _Shut up_ , Shane, just shut up,” Ryan kneads at his temples, desperately trying to scrub out the damned headache that’s bubbled up in his skull. (And if he could also crush his own skull before Shane opens his stupid mouth again, well, that would be a much-appreciated perk.) “Can you _please_ take this seriously? Please?”

“The thing is, Ryan, I’m trying to, I really am. But we’ve been combed every single book on the shelf for _days_ \-- hell, you’ve probably been at this longer than I have-- and what do we have?”  

Ryan’s sure there’s a proper name for the _sigh-groan-yell-grunt_ of sheer frustration he lets out, face buried in his hands.

“See, that’s exactly what I’m saying! I’m exhausted, you’re _dying_ , it’s almost night and all we have is proof that nothing like this has ever happened in history, and probably won’t ever again.” Ryan looks up, only to shoot the man a _glare_. Shane’s voice softens. “Look, man, you have to let up at some point, right? For all you know, you’re looking in all the wrong places, and scraping the ass-end of every historical barrel out there isn’t gonna change that.”

“No, there _has_ to be something--”

Ryan hears Shane’s book slam shut. “Well, can’t we save it for tomorrow? It’s almost night, and you really should eat something.”

“I think I lost three weeks worth of appetite because of that stupid _cart_ \--”

“Don’t do this to yourself,” Shane growls, and there’s a ghost of a feeling across Ryan’s back. “Feed the dogs, eat something and let it go.”

The clock ticks. _Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick._

“Fine. I--” Ryan rakes his fingers through his hair. “Okay. Okay, I’ll just finish the July entries, then I’m done.”

“I’ll whip something up,” Shane offers, and whether it’s because of the softness in his voice or the heaviness in Ryan’s eyelids, he obliges.

“There’s some peas and meat in the ice-box, left side. The bag on the right’s for Micki and Dori, make sure you cook that separately.” Ryan drags himself back to the desk, reluctantly slumping into the chair.

“Got it, chief!”

Ryan groans.

“You’re welcome!” Comes the cheery shout from the kitchenette.

 

* * *

 

 

Shane puffs on the spoon, then licks at it cursorily.

_Hm._

A pinch more salt lands in the pot.

Another lick.

_Oh, gross._

“Whaddya think? Smell good?” Shane croons at the dog cradled in his other arm. He _still_ can’t remember its name, but the brown one’s the one nibbling at his shoelaces, while the one he’s carrying is dappled with black spots and currently trying to lick the-- _oh, shit!_

“Hey! No! What are you doing? Your mother will _kill_ me!” Shane whispers at the traitorous little thing, and at least she has the decency to look contrite.

It’s been at least an hour, Shane’s sure of it, and the evening’s lulled his brain into a profound sort of quietness he hasn’t felt in too long. He was only mildly shocked when Ryan walked right up to the window, already pouring the Blood Moon’s red light into the attic, and simply drew the curtains as one might if the sunlight was a little too harsh or something. _Huh._ Shane’s also completely tuned out Ryan’s noises of frustration and increasingly spiteful page-flipping. He’s aware of little more than the tiny dogs yapping at his feet and the inviting aroma of the soup, lazily stirring the goop in the pot and occasionally bending down to scratch behind the dogs’ ears, cooing softly.

It’s oddly domestic, Shane realises. He’s not cooking dinner in a stranger’s kitchen, he’s cooking dinner in _Ryan_ ’s kitchen, keeping watch over _Ryan_ ’s dogs too. Somewhere out there, there’s a closet with Shane’s clothes, a bed with Shane’s shoes laid beside it, a lamp that Shane bought himself. There’s a desk with Shane’s paperwork and unpaid bills, and there’s an entire life that once belonged entirely to Shane and _Her_. But all of that seems far away, forever frozen in time, paused indefinitely. He’s been cut adrift and as far as he’s concerned, he exists solely in a world that consists of the attic, the bakery downstairs, the dogs, and _Ryan._

He doesn’t mind it, though.

Being suspended in this odd limbo is undeniably better than fearing for his life and _Her’s_ every night, and while he--

“ _HOLY SHIT, SHANE!”_

Shane jumps, cursing as his hand jerks and flings the spoon to the ground.

“Goddamnit.” Shane sighs, pretending not to notice both Micki and Dori licking at the soup-covered spoon as he strides over to Ryan. Little _vultures._

“This better be good, I was really on a roll with that soup--”

“Shane, I think I’ve done it! I might have just solved something!” Ryan’s fully perked up, beaming triumphantly as he clutches the journal to his chest.

“You did?”

“Yes! I even cross-referenced all the historical records from that year, and other works by the same seer, and--”

“Ryan, that’s great! But how ‘bout we eat, and you explain it to me over dinner?”

“Oh, god, yes! I’m starving!”

 

* * *

 

“Okay, see here, July 1401-- that’s 500 years ago-- this seer named Domnule Vedea, from Romania. He came and lived in this _exact town_ , exactly _500 years ago_ , and said this:

> _Beings of nightmares walk the earth_
> 
> _The damned awake as blood fills the streets_
> 
> _The dead rise_
> 
> _And the living fill their tombs_

Ya follow?” Ryan says, excitement crackling through him like lightning.

“Uh-huh...and? It could just be a plague or somethin’,” Shane contemplatively chews on the (overcooked) meat.

“Ah, that’s what I thought, _except_.” Ryan pauses to flip a page in his notebook. “On record, there _was no plague_. None of the towns near where Vedea lived reported any plague. _Unless.”_ Another page. “You look at the criminal records. If you compare our town, or what our town used to be called, with these other three towns, you can see here,” Ryan gestures with the handle of his spoon, “that our town’s numbers of murders and assaults _doubles_ that of the other three. It’s all in the numbers, man! You don’t think that’s weird?”

“I-- well-- _yeah_ \--”

“AND, remember that undertaker’s cart?”

“Mm-hm?”

“I looked, and all the bodies were _white_ \--”

Shane sighs. “Ryan, we’re in America--”

“No, you great idiot, white as in _drained of blood_!” Ryan flings his arms emphatically. “Don’t you see?!”

“Um. Not really?”

“ _Vampires, Shane!”_

Shane chokes on the his mouthful of peas, then splutters. “N-- I-- What?! Are you _serious_?!”

“C’mon, Shane, you can’t say it doesn’t make sense!”

“It absolutely does _not_! There! I said it!”

“No fuckin’ way, man. Look, Domnule Vedea said something about ‘creatures of nightmares’, and the attacks only happen at night, resulting in bodies _sucked clean of blood_ . What else does the evidence point to?!” Ryan practically _yells_.

“I don’t know! But, okay, here me out-- even if it was actually fuckin’ vampires, do you know how to stop them?”

“I--” Ryan falls silent. “I don’t.”

“So now what? Assuming you’re right?”

Ryan chews his lip.

“We’ll look for more stuff in the morning, I guess,” he shrugs. Shane polishes off the last of his soup.

“Well, sounds like a plan to me,” Shane shrugs. “Shall we turn in for the night?”

“Okay! Man, I’m exhausted! God, my brain’s gonna shut down at any minute now,” Ryan stretches. “You go get cleaned up first, since you made dinner.”

“Okay, won’t be long,” Shane gathers the towel and set of pajamas Andrew lent him, turning to leave for the bathroom they shared with Andrew.

“Alright, have fun,” Ryan yawns, already reclining on the couch. “Micki! Dori! Bedtime!”

Shane chuckles, unlacing his boots. _God,_ how he craves a good, hot shower.

“Micki! Dori!”

It takes a full minute for Shane to realise that there was no answer.

The terror in Ryan’s voice makes Shane freeze.

“Shane. The dogs.”

Ryan’s eyes are wide with panic.

  
“ _Where are the dogs?!”_

 

 

 


	3. Run, Rabbit, Run

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the boys see blood.

“I have to go get them.” Ryan’s eyes glint with steel as he pulls on his coat.

“What?” 

“I’m going to get the dogs back.” 

“No, you’re not.” Shane steps back so he can bar his arm across the door. 

Ryan refuses to meet his eyes as he strides forward, chest nearly meeting Shane’s arm. “Yes, I am.” 

“No, you’re  _ not!”  _

“Shane, move.”

“No, Ryan, you’re not going.” 

Ryan’s voice wobbles. “Shane, move your fucking arm, I need to go--” 

“No, you don’t need to--” 

“Shane,  _ please just move-- _ ” Ryan’s eyes fix anywhere except Shane’s, but he can see the telltale glint of wetness already starting to build. Shane’s heart twists. 

“No, Ryan, just  _ listen to yourself _ ! It’s the fucking  _ Blood Moon _ , do you understand?! You go down there, there’s no telling what the Moonlight’s gonna do to you!” He’s shaking Ryan by the shoulders, fairly certain he’s shouting--  _ fuck that _ , anything to stop Ryan from going down there and--

“Let go of me.” 

“No, Ryan,  _ please _ !”

“I said _ , let go of me _ ,  _ asshole. _ ” Ryan spits. 

“And I said  _ no _ , because if you think for a  _ second _ I’m letting you go out under a fucking  _ Blood Moon _ \--”

“I’m immune to the Light--” 

 

_ “I’m immune to the Light, Shane, I’ll be fine!”  _

_ “No, no no no no-- Sara, listen to me--”  _

_ “It’s gonna be okay, I promise.” _

 

“I don’t give a shit! Immune or not, you can’t go down there!” 

“Fuck off!” Ryan screams. He elbows Shane hard in the chest, and though it momentarily throws his focus, his grip on Ryan’s shoulders quickly turns iron.   
  


_ “I’ll be back in a while, Shane, don’t worry alright?”  _

 

“You’re gonna die, Ryan, don’t you get it?!” 

“Yeah? Well the dogs are gonna die if I don’t--” 

“Screw that! I’d rathe--” 

The punch catches Shane on his jaw. Ryan twists out of his grip, and it’s nearly successful until Shane recovers, locking an arm around Ryan’s waist. 

“You piece of shit! Let me go! They’re gonna die, Shane, please-- they can’t save themselves and-- and-- and someone’s gonna hurt them if I don’t go down now!” Ryan’s crying, full on sobbing, as he claws desperately at Shane’s arm. And it’s one of the worst things in the world, Shane realises, hearing Ryan cry like this-- but he’d rather hear Ryan cry than watch his body lie silently in a ditch, like  _ Her’s _ . 

“Ryan, I’m sorry, I can’t let you--”  
  


_ “I can’t let you do this, Sara!” _

_ “I have to, I have a plan and we’ll be safe.”  _

 

“Please, Shane, Micki and Dori need me--”   
  


_ “And if it doesn’t work?”  _

_ “It will, I just need to buy us some time.” _  
  


“No, I can’t let you do this!”   
  


_ “Just stay in the house, Shane, I’ll be careful.” _

 

“I can’t let them die, asshat!” 

“I can’t let  _ you _ die!” 

 

_ “Sara, no-- you can’t do this, I can’t let you do this--”  _ __  
_  
_ __ “I love you, Shane” 

 

“They’re all I have, Shane.” 

And Shane’s jaw only throbs vaguely, barely noticeable over the feeling of all the air collapsing in his chest, eyes stinging with tears of his own.  _ But I thought  _ I  _ was--  _

“I’m sorry.” 

“Ryan--” 

But he doesn’t hold Ryan back this time. 

  
  


* * *

 

Everything’s red. 

There’s crimson painting everything; the light of the Blood Moon casts a demonic glow over the houses and streets that makes Ryan nauseous. He can smell blood in the air, livid and coppery, as though the fog slinking through the streets is made of fear itself.

But the worst part of this is how utterly  _ silent  _ it is. Living on the outskirts of town means that the all the streets are empty, the houses boarded-up. Dark shadows quietly slink through the mist and twist round the sparse streetlamps like snakes, oily and slick with blood; in the distance, chanting and shrieking echoes like a threat. 

Harshly, Ryan scrubs the wetness from his eyes with the back of his hand, and Shane’s words only hit him now. The second he steps out from the cover of shadows at the bakery’s back door, he steps into a coffin. The second he opens his mouth to shout the dogs’ names, he’s closing the lid. And the second he runs out to get them, he’s locked in. 

Still, he can’t turn back. Won’t turn back. Not when there’s a chance the dogs are still alive. Micki was never much of a night owl, and Dori somehow took on his jumpiness, so there’s no way they’d be very far. The most likely scenario would be that they’ve run out of the house, gotten spooked by the strange new environment, and are hiding somewhere close by.

 

_ Okay, breathe, Ryan, breathe.  _

 

He holds one of Andrew’s shovels high above his head, and steps out. 

He breathes in, then out. 

 

_ No turning back. _

 

“MICKI! DORI!” 

There’s no answer, and he tries again. 

“MICKI! DORI!” 

There’s nothing again, and Ryan’s breathing so fast that his head starts to spin. 

“PLEASE, IT’S ME! I’M RIGHT HERE! IT’S-- IT’S GONNA BE ALRIGHT, JUST STAY WHERE YOU ARE AND-- AND I’LL FIND YOU, I SWEAR--” 

His heart thuds in his chest, the distant screams at the city centre fading out to white noise. The silence is agonising; there’s something telling Ryan to run as fast as he can, to get  _ away _ . But there’s nothing he can see for miles-- in the empty streets, danger is nowhere and everywhere at once, as omnipresent as the fog laced with shadows. 

The silence is so deafening that Ryan barely hears the footsteps till it’s too late. 

Something--  _ someone-- _ crashes into him from behind at full speed, sending both Ryan and the  _ person _ straight into the ground. Ryan barely stops himself from smacking face-first into the wet cobblestones, twisting and blindly swinging the shovel at the assailant. The sickening  _ thwack _ of metal against flesh sings through the night over and over again as Ryan squeezes his eyes shut, striking and striking until the body above him slumps to the side--

The man is dead. 

Or, he should be. When the white-hot panic thrumming through his brain slowly cools, Ryan finally sees the stranger lying on the pavement. The side of his head is crushed and bloodied, chest torn up from stab wounds and gashes. There’s blood  _ everywhere _ . 

Ryan runs. 

“MICKI! DORI!” He screams, then waits. 

 

_ Scream.  _

 

_ Wait.  _

 

_ Run.  _

 

_ Scream. Wait. Run.  _

 

_ Scream, wait, run, try not to cry-- _

 

That’s when he hears it. There’s a pair of footsteps, too light to be human, skittering in the distance. 

“MICKI! DORI!” Ryan yells at the top of his lungs. They’re close, so close, and try as he might he can’t stop the wave of sheer relief washing over him. Then he sees the tiny, dark shapes, nearly invisible in the fog, crouching under the waxy glow of a dying streetlamp. 

“Oh my god, oh my god, you’re okay--” 

He can barely believe it, even as the dogs yap and burrow in his arms when he scoops them up, holding them close.  _ They’re okay, they’re okay, they’re okay,  _ Ryan chants to himself as Micki licks at his cheek and Dori buries herself in the crook of his elbow. 

“Let’s get you two home.”

 

* * *

 

Shane sank to the ground a while ago, and hasn’t gotten up since. 

Because, from where he’s kneeling by the door, he can see everything. The kitchenette, where a pair of unwashed bowls still sit in the sink; the wire enclosure filled with chew-toys and leftover bones; a desk set against a wall, covered in parchment on which two sets of handwriting skitter like ants, so different yet so alike… 

He’s tired. He’s spent the day reading and researching and poring over books and joking with Ryan and laughing at Ryan’s stories and— and— and— 

Shane’s tired, and he just wants to forget, just for a second, that  _ someone else  _ has run out into the night, without promise of return. Because now, if he stares into the empty attic long enough, he can see a diminutive, charcoal-haired man chewing a pencil, leafing through a too-large book as the afternoon sun glows against his bronze skin; if he closes his eyes, he can see a curly-haired woman dancing through the hallways of an old house, morning sunlight catching the edges of her twirling skirts. If Shane stays where he is, neither will disappear for long. Both will stay. 

Oh, how he wants them to stay. 

And so Shane doesn’t move. Doesn’t get up, doesn’t even shift his weight when he feels his knees start to ache. He doesn’t scrub the tears from his cheeks either.

 

_ He sees Sara sitting on the small cot, painting some odd cartoon, ringlets tangled into a bun using a spare paintbrush. She’s singing to herself too, something light and lilting.  _

_ Behind him, Ryan’s there, and so are Micki and Dori. They’re as ridiculously tiny as he remembers, little balls of pure energy.  _

_ And he doesn’t turn around, but he feels Ryan’s hand on his shoulder, squeezing it reassuringly. Shane doesn’t look, but he finds himself reaching over to hold Ryan’s hand-- _

 

Ryan’s oddly  _ real, solid hand. _  
  


“Ryan, you-- you’re--” 

“Yeah...I am.” 

Shane doesn’t need to imagine throwing one arm around Ryan and cradling the dogs in another, pulling them close as both men quake with violent sobs. Limbs tangle together, knuckles going white around the grip they have on the other. 

It’s all real, Shane realises; curling up on the couch in yesterday’s clothes, cocooning themselves in a blanket, falling asleep with Micki and Dori safely sandwiched between them-- this is reality, and for once, reality doesn’t seem too bad. 

“You’re a real idiot, Ryan.” 

“Shut up, Shane.”

 

* * *

 

In the early morning, the teapot gurgles over the fire, some odd sort of sound Ryan isn’t entirely sure it should be making. He takes the pot off carefully, tipping the amber liquid into two mugs. He watches the steam curl, pale ribbons twisting and unfurling in the soft morning sunlight. The smell is soft and woody, a gentle and comforting aroma that slowly eased Ryan’s brain into a serene sort of clarity. It’s a safe, warm feeling; hopeful even. And it reminds him of Shane. 

Shane stirs, still asleep on the couch. Micki and Dori are still nestled around him too. 

He’s sleeping off a panic attack. It’s hard to believe that things could get worse after the dogs ran off, but Ryan had woken up to Shane, well. Panicking. There was blood all over his shirt from when he...fell, and Ryan supposes that for a guy who thought his friend just ran off to his death, waking up to said friend covered in  _ blood _ wasn’t a good sight. It took a while to convince Shane that the blood wasn’t his, and that it was some dead guy’s. Finally, Shane had calmed down, and Ryan let him sleep on. 

He’s had it rough, Ryan thinks. He’s not entirely sure what happened before he found the man, but Ryan’s at least sure that Shane was running from something that night, and has been running since. He wishes he knew what exactly it was, but something tells him Shane isn’t too sure either. Only that it’s left flint-edged keloid scars on Shane’s psyche. He’s been having nightmares too, whispering pleas in his sleep. Always begging some nameless phantom to stay, never succeeding. Ryan knows because he doesn’t sleep much either. It wasn’t always like this, only on nights when the Blood Moon was out (which, at this point, was every night anyway). It’s his stupid brain, he surmised long ago. He feels it crackling with energy, ticking all the time, questions and answers bleeding into each other, and it gets worse at night. That’s when his brain spins out of control, a sudden shot of energy that sends his synapses into a goddamn torturous  _ tailspin  _ of activity. 

The Blood Moon’s taken something from everyone, Ryan supposes. Still, not being able to do anything for Shane hurts. It feels awful. Shane is a pillar of fire, his beacon of warmth in the night, the first friend he’s had in  _ years.  _ His laundry-list of doubts and fears disappear when Shane makes dumb cracks at his expense. He owes Shane so much, and what does he give in return? Other than housing the man in his attic, which has essentially become  _ their  _ attic anyway, Ryan can’t think of any way he’s done anything that matches what Shane’s done for him. It truly feels awful. 

Ryan sighs. Shane shifts again, stirring awake. 

“Hey, man.”

“Hey.” Shane’s voice is scratchy, sleep-heavy. 

“I’ve got oatmeal. And tea. Or... d’you just want the tea?” 

“Thanks, man.” Shane pushes himself into a sitting position. “Hey, girl,” he says as Micki stretches out over his lap, falling back to sleep. 

“Don’t mention it,” Ryan offers a small grin, bringing the two steaming mugs over to the couch. The pair sip at the tea in comfortable silence, resting in the calm of the early morning sunlight. 

“Look, when I said ‘screw that’, I didn’t mean I-- I didn’t care about Micki and Dori. I just--” Shane goes quiet for a little too long. But Ryan waits. Barely audible, he says, “I used to know someone like you.”

“I know.” 

“And I’m sorry, I--I went over the line.” 

Ryan exhales, too shakily for his liking. “It’s okay. We’re okay. I-- I just couldn’t leave them out there, not when the Blood Moon’s up. They’re the only family I’ve had for the last five years, and I can’t lose them too.” 

He sees the question ticking hesitantly through Shane’s mind, long before he asks: “What happened to your family?” 

Ryan hums. It’s hard to pick a point to start at, but he does anyway. “My dad left us a long time ago. My mom never talked about it, but she married my step-dad when I was seven. Real piece’a work, that guy,” he bites out. 

Shane nods sympathetically. 

“He was a pious asshole. Told my mom that my dad must’ve died early as punishment for a  _ life of sin _ . And after the first night of the Blood Moon? When I found out I was the only one in my family that was  _ immune _ ?” Ryan spits a harsh laugh. “He went ballistic. Said I must be the  _ spawn of the devil _ , and threw me out.” 

“Jesus,” Shane mutters lowly. 

“It got better,” Ryan shrugs. “That’s when Andrew took me in, and I found these little guys hiding out in the kitchen one night. They’ve been family to me ever since.” 

“Wow,” Shane whistles. “That’s rough, buddy.” 

The two busy themselves with clearing the dirty dishes in the sink. Ryan hums to himself quietly, while Shane chuckles as Micki paws at his shin. 

“No, you can’t-- don’t give me that face, we fed you just fine!” Shane chides. Still, Micki persists. “Not my fault Ryan  _ spoils _ you!” 

Ryan breaks into a grin. “I do  _ not _ !” 

“Of course you do! You pamper them!” 

“Yeah, I guess I do.” Ryan laughs, then adds quietly, “I’m just really glad they’re okay. Ya know, Blood Moon and all…” 

Shane smiles knowingly. In mock-anger, he scolds, “the  _ audacity _ ! The things your mother does for you. You two better be thankful you’re fine!”

_ Wait. They’re fine.  _

Something nudges at the back of Ryan’s brain. 

“They’re fine,” Ryan says slowly. 

“Uh, yeah, they’re fine. Are you okay?” Shane says, bemused. 

“Yeah. Shane, the dogs are fine.” Ryan asserts again. 

“Yeah, we established that already!” 

“No, you don’t get it--” Ryan’s eyes go wide, and he gesticulates vaguely, “-- Micki and Dori went out under a Blood Moon, and they’re  _ fine _ !” 

“I...don’t follow.”

“Micki and Dori, two completely random dogs, went out under the Blood Moon. The  _ fucking  _ Blood Moon, Shane, that makes almost  _ everyone _ go fucking  _ bonkers _ ,” there’s the  _ tick-tick-ticking  _ in his brain again, cogs and wheels spinning blindingly fast. “Or, every  _ human _ go fucking bonkers. Because two random dogs, they-- they went out into the Blood Moon, and they’re perfectly normal. Do you get it?” 

“What exactly are you getting at?” Shane says,  _ frustratingly  _ perplexed. 

“What if the Blood Moon was never meant to hurt the dogs?” Ryan almost shouts, eyes wild. “What if-- what if this was meant to hurt  _ people _ ?” 

“ _ Meant to _ hurt people? Ryan, this doesn’t make sen--” 

“Of course it doesn’t! The moon turns red with increasing frequency for five whole years, every day at this point, and this-- this red moonlight drives people into a murderous rage. Name one part of that, that makes sense!” 

“Ah.”

“I’m not saying I believe it a hundred-percent, but it’s a theory and we should check it out!”

“Makes sense.” Shane hums. 

“Where do we start?”

Shane is (slightly disappointingly) silent for a long time, nodding slowly, before he finally says, “and you said something about a dead guy?” 

“Uh, yeah?” Ryan blinks. 

“I say we check that dead guy out.”

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for sticking with me thus far! 
> 
> There's still a fair amount of stuff I'm figuring about this site, and this is the largest project I've taken on to date, but I promise that I'll keep bringing twists, turns and spooky stuff.


	4. Deeper Still

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the boys do what they do best-- bicker. Oh, and I guess there's some investigating too.

 

“D’you think he’ll still be there?” Ryan’s breath is a white puff in the frigid air. The bakery’s back lane is quiet, pallid and grey in the early morning. Nothing stirs behind the boarded-up windows, and the doors remain so tightly shut that it’s easy to believe the houses wish to fold in on themselves and disappear too. The pair are essentially the only ones outside.

“Probably. I mean, sunrise can’t have been too long ago, and no sane person’s gonna clear the bodies while it’s dark.” Shane surmises. “Do you still remember where you were?”

“I, uh...I think so-- oh, okay, yeah-- I remember I found the dogs under a broken streetlamp, in that direction. The streetlamp was on the other side of the road, and the guy attacked me not very long before I found the dogs.”

“Great, so we’re headed in the right direction?”

“Yeah, I think so-- watch your step!”

“Oh, gross, _grossgrossgross_ \--” Shane flounders, blanching as he narrowly hops over an evil-smelling, unidentifiable puddle.

Ryan snickers. “What, can’t handle a little grit n’grime, big guy?”

“I think that was _just a little more_ than plain ol’ dirt!”

“Not your regular ol’ dirt? Some-- some _premium dirt_?”

“That was some five-star dirt, _babyyy_!” Shane drawls, and Ryan laughs himself into breathlessness.

“You’re-- you’re the dirt inspector now? You just show up with a little notepad and just rate puddles of dirt? ‘Mm, yes, five stars, some top-tier dirt, boys!’”

“Oh no, not those, none of this _pauper’s dirt_ in my presence!”

“ _Pauper’s dirt!_ Holy shit!” Ryan loses it again. “I-- wait where are we going again?”

“Why are you asking me? I thought you said you remembered!”

“I do, you great _lummox_! We’re supposed to have seen him by now!”

“Relax,” Shane sighs. “Where’s the broken streetlamp?”

“It’s-- oh my god. Shane.” Ryan’s heart stops. He whips around frantically. “It’s there. Behind us.” His voice rises a pitch, or five. “We fucking passed it.” Ryan spins on his heel, and Shane hops a little to keep up with the shorter man’s slightly frenzied brisk-walking.

“You’re kidding, right? How did we pass right by where a man literally--”

“I don’t fuckin’ know! He attacked me right in the middle of the street, and he’s just-- just fuckin’ gone! What the _fuck_ ?!” Ryan paces, halfway _manic_ , raking at his hair. “This makes no fuckin’ sense!”

“You were up before me, this morning, right? Did you hear anyone come by? The undertaker gets called to collect the-- the bodies, right? Did you hear a cart come by?”

“I-- no, no I didn’t, I--”

“Okay.” Shane says simply. “Okay, so that’s weird--”

“ _That’s weird?_ Is that it? A dead guy just vanished and that’s, _‘oh, bother, now that’s a little head-scratcher’_? Is this like, a fuckin’-- a Sunday crossword? That’s--”

“Okay, now see-- you _really_ gotta calm down, man, like-- he could’ve disappeared for any number of _perfectly_ logical reasons, right? You need to relax, okay? Can you do that? Relax?” Shane asserts, and _holy shit,_ Ryan thinks, because he can’t remember when Shane’s hand got on his shoulder.

Ryan inhales shakily. “Yeah-- yeah, okay. I’m relaxed, I’m relaxing.”

“You’re really not.”

“Shut up.”

“That’s rude.”

“ _You’re_ rude.”

“You’re aware this is a pointless exchange, right?” Shane sighs, _deeply_. “Are we gonna keep going, or are we gonna look around?”

 

* * *

 

 

“Nothing. There’s nothing. It’s literally clean.”

“Are you sure you’re looking?”

Ryan laughs in disbelief. “ _Am I sure_ \-- of course I’m sure! We’ve literally combed the place three times, Shane, and there’s not even the slightest trace of anything! It’s as if last night never even _happened_!”

“Aw, that happen to you a lot?” Shane smirked, getting up from where he was scrutinizing a crate.

“Shut up, Shane. I’m serious. You saw how gross the streets were, right?” Ryan scratches at his chin. “It’s like, no one cleans the streets. There’s trash and piss and a bunch of cockroaches goin’ at it in a corner, and what, a whole body can just disappear?”

“I mean, it’s not hard to just...pick up a body and leave. Could be bodysnatcher or something.”

“Yeah, but there was blood, man! I mean, I-- I had a shovel, and I--” Ryan looks sick for a second. (Shane almost doesn’t want to know why.) “There had to have been blood on the floor, at least, and it’s just...gone.”

“Would you...not...want to clean blood off the street? You just gonna leave it?”

“But _who’s_ the one doing the cleaning, and why only the body and the blood?”

They’re silent for a while.

“Well, when you put it that way, something does sound a little odd,” Shane admits.

“I mean, we could just be grasping at straws here, but you see the ground?” Ryan vaguely gestures around them. The ground is...well, dirty. Grimy, grey cobblestones, with muck in the cracks that one shouldn’t stare at too long. The odd bit of rubbish. Dirty, in the most mundane sense of the word. “There’s no clean spot. If-- if...Hm. Okay, if I took an axe and swung it at you--”

“If you _what_?!”

“No, shut up-- if I took an axe and hacked you with it, and there’s blood everywhere, and I need to clean up the blood-- if I scrubbed the blood off the floor, y’know, really scrubbed out every trace, the floor would be clean too. But it’s not. You can’t find a spot where the it’s less gross or whatever.”

“That makes sense. But you really couldn’t skip over the part where you take an axe to my face, could you?”

“Nah,” Ryan simply grins and shrugs, turning to leave.

“Jesus Christ.” Shane shudders in mock terror, making Ryan snicker. “The thing is, though, who would do this? Y’know, usually when people scrub the evidence away, it’s because they murdered someone, right? But on the other hand, this guy was just in it for the cleanup. That smells fishy to me.”

“It does. But what if-- what if this wasn’t just one single person? What if it’s a bunch of people, covering up for something?”

“A conspiracy? Really?”

“Well, it’s just a theory. Would you be able to do this on your own? Drag a dead guy away, scrub bloodstains off the floor, re-dirty the floor so you can’t even tell anything was there, then leave? All before daylight, when there’s no telling if people are still under the Moonlight’s grip?”

“Well, _theoretically_ \--”

“You wouldn’t, right? That’s what I mean. Our sweeper had help,” Ryan insists.

“I was gonna say that _theoretically_ , I think I could--”

“Yeah, but that’s because you’re _weird_! You’re like, eight feet tall!”

Shane quirks an eyebrow. “I’m really just average height, though.”

“No, _I’m_ average!”

“Aw, don’t say that, Ryan. No one’s truly mediocre!” Shane singsongs, patting his back in mock sympathy.

“Oh, you dick.” Ryan says exasperatedly.

They’re silent for a long time, once more.

“To be fair, I like this theory more than the one with vampires.”

 

* * *

 

 

_July, 1906_

_What we already know:_

  * __“Blood Moon”-- red moonlight induces severe reaction, violence: 11/10, reason: 0/10, capable of murder & far worse__


  * _Does not affect dogs, only humans. Further observation needed? Probably unethical in multiple ways...moving on_


  * _Some immune? As far as I am aware, I am the only one with immunity. Could there be more?_


  * _Victims pale, drained of blood-- possible vampirism cannot be ruled out (NB: do_ _not_ _show this page to Shane)_


  * _Recent victim found: area meticulously cleared, no traces of any abnormal activity in surroundings at all. This was done so, presumably while still dark._



 

_Questions:_

  * ___Someone wanted the evidence_ _gone_ _. Who, and-----------------------------------___



 

 

"RYAN COME LOOK AT THIS!"

“ _AH!_ Shane, you dick, look what you made me do!” Ryan whines, affronted, jabbing a finger at the stark black line of ink now slashed across his notebook. “This was an important page!”

“Ooh, can I see?” Shane pesters.

“Uh, it--it’s not anything we don’t already know, so…”

“Oh, great, so you have time for this, right?” Shane replies, not exactly sounding like he would have waited anyway. Ryan sighs longsufferingly.

“If you’re gonna make Dori jump through that hoop again I swear--”

“No, not that! Look, so I was gonna sit on the couch, right, to read a book. And your stupid laundry was on the couch. Seriously, man, do you ever pick up after yourself?”

“Do you ever get to the point?” Ryan shoots back.

“Touche. Well, remember when you ran outside like an imbecile?”

“An imbecile _with dogs_? Yes?”

“And you came back covered in blood right? The dead guy’s blood?” Shane strides over to the couch. “Blood, right? But look at this--” Ryan follows him to the couch, where he discarded last night’s shirt. Ryan gasps.

“No fucking way.”

“You’re seeing this too, right?”

Ryan narrows his eyes, crouching to get a closer look. “That’s…”

“Fuckin’ weird?” Shane scoffs, more incredulous than anything else. “Yeah, I’d say.”

Because the crumpled shirt lying on the couch is spattered in poppy-coloured blotches, vivid crimson blooming across the previously cream-coloured linen.

“That-- that’s just blood, isn’t it? The dead guy’s blood. He lunged at me, and I swung, and I-- that’s blood, right?”

“ _Tch_ , sure,” Shane crossed his arms in that proud manner Ryan found particularly _infuriating_ . “If blood dries the colour of cherries on a cake, then yeah, that’s blood, _baby_.”

Ryan rose slowly, not quite processing this. So there was something at the scene of the...crime? _God, that sounded horrible_ . There was something at the scene. Something that wasn’t supposed to be detectable by the hundreds of people who probably either scrubbed the the remnants of the Blood Moon off as soon as possible, or perished along with the clothes on their backs. It was _evidence_ , an anomaly, a clue that fell into their hands (or, more accurately, Ryan fell into that night) by some unbelievable stroke of luck, and whatever it was, should have been undetectable, but it _was._

And they were this much closer to the truth.

 

* * *

 

“Hey, Andrew? You got a minute?”

“Ryan! Shane! You’re up early. What’s up?” Andrew dusts the flour from his hands.

“I, uh, we need a favour.”

“Sure, just give me a second. Adam! Can you take the cake out of the oven? Forty-two seconds, don’t burn yourself!” A bearded pastry chef salutes cheerily, proceeding to stare intently at said oven. Satisfied, the blond European flings his apron over a hook, guiding the pair away from the hubbub at the front of the kitchen. “What happened?”

Ryan clears his throat. “So, remember how I was doing all this research? On the Blood Moon?”

Andrew nods. “Like the stubborn bastard you are.”

“Yeah, well Shane and I found something. From last night. I went out under the Blood Moon, and some guy charged at me.”

Andrew’s eyes widen. “Holy shit, are you hurt?”

“I’m okay, thanks, man. But that’s the thing. We thought the shirt I was wearing was covered in blood, right? But it turns out, whatever’s on my shirt-- it’s weird.” Ryan whispers clandestinely. “It looks like blood, stains like blood, but-- get this-- it dries _bright red_.”

Andrew nods silently. An unreadable expression passes over his face. “So you need me to…?”

“We need someone who can tell us what that stuff is,” Shane replies. “Ryan says you know a guy.”

“A chemist,” Ryan affirms.

“A chemist,” Andrew repeats incredulously.

“A chemist,” Ryan says, and Shane almost laughs at this _highly productive exchange._

“Ohhh, no, no, no. _No can do_ , man.” Andrew folds his arms, and gone is the cheery demeanour from barely minutes ago.

“C’mon, man, this is important!” Ryan pleads.

“Absolutely not, Ryan.” Andrew states. “Look, man, we’ve been friends since childhood. There’s a great many things I’d help you with, gladly. This? This is a no-go.”

“Andrew, please, we need to see that chemist. He’s the only hope we have in getting to the bottom of this, for once and for all! You know that!”

“You’re talking about getting to the bottom of the _Blood Moon_ , right? The same Blood Moon that’s been killing thousands of people for years? We’re talking about the same thing, right?” Andrew folds his arms.

“Yeah, and--”

“And what makes you think there’s anything about this that can be stopped, huh?” Andrew fires back. “And even if so, what makes you think you two should get involved? What makes you think you should drag more people into this mess?”

“I--”

Andrew gives Ryan a warning look, wildly out of place in his usually calm eyes. “Listen, Ryan, I can’t let you see the chemist. He stopped getting into this stuff years ago. You know damn well I won’t let you drag him back in.”

“But--”

“Look,” Shane cuts in. “We need the chemist. He’s the only one who can tell us what the red stuff at the crime scene was, and that might be our best shot at the truth, and maybe a putting a stop to all of this too. I’ve lost someone, and last night, I almost lost Ryan too. Every day, people are dying, and whatever the chemist tells us can only bring us closer to stopping it. Please, man,” he says, and his eyes glimmer fiercely like smouldering coal.

Andrew sighs, running a hand through his dirty-blond hair. He looks worn as he says, “Oh, goddamnit.”

 

* * *

 

“This place stinks.”

“Shut _up,_ man! What if he can hear us?” Ryan hisses, jabbing his elbow into Shane’s side.

“Ow, man!” Shane yelps, returning with a jab. “It’s the _place_ , not the guy!”

The wooden floorboards creak in protest, the sound almost reverberating in the quiet of the basement. The pair descend the rotting wooden stairs, almost instantly submerged in air thick with a sharp, chemical tang. In the distance, glass clinks quietly; there’s also the faint roar of a small flame, and some sort of bubbling. Amber candlelight creeps round the corridor, bright enough to spatter flecks of gold over the walls lined top-to-toe with shelves of vials, books and metal apparatus, but not quite strong enough to reach the stairs.

 _The reclusive chemist’s abode,_ Ryan thinks, because “ _abode_ ” is really the only word that fits such a place. A precarious sort of quiet fills the air, a silence so _precise_ that it’s as if every little sound has been finely calculated, pieced together so meticulously that anything less would be a grave disturbance.

Ryan retorts, whispering: “Still! You’re being a dick to whoever lives here!”

“I’m just observing!” Shane whispered back.

“Well _observe_ quieter!” Ryan snaps, entirely forgetting to be quiet.

“Hello?”

 _“AAH!”_ Ryan _shrieks_ impressively, shooting five feet into the air, arms pinwheeling as he blindly smacks into a shelf, which wobbles and dumps a book (spine-first, thankfully) onto Shane’s downturned head.

“Oh my god, I’m so sorry about that! Gave you guys a hell of a scare! Oh, boy, _A Comprehensive Treatise on the Distillation and Isolation of Naturally-Occuring Esters_ ? You just got _brained_ by some hard knowledge, man! I’ve been looking for this for days! Are you alright, man?” Someone’s babbling, Shane notices belatedly (concussedly?), and it takes him a while to realise that _that was the chemist they needed a colossal favour from and probably now thinks Andrew sent a pair of imbeciles his way._

“Oh, shit, no, it’s fine, you just scared the crap outta me. A--are you the chemist?” Ryan says.

“Yup! In the flesh, baby!” The chemist, Ryan notices, is nothing of the uncontactable recluse Andrew warned them off. He’s a cheery-looking young man, not very much older than Ryan himself. He’s got twinkling eyes permanently crinkled in a laugh, a grimy lab-coat draped over a lanky, unimposing frame. His tousled hair is the unnaturally bright colour of champagne, and the tips are...smoking?

“Uh...your hair is...ah--”

“Oh, whoops!” The chemist pats at his hair with a gloved hand. “I was just trying out a new dye formula, and I guess things got a little out of hand! Guess that’s one way to get rid of those split ends…-- Oh! Where are my manners! Steven Lim, at your service!”

“I’m Ryan, and this is Shane. We’re friends of Andrew’s,” Ryan shakes Steven’s proffered hand.

“Oh! Yeah, Andrew said you were gonna drop in! And _drop in_ you did!” Steven winks, holding up the fallen book. “So, what brings you two to my lair?”

“We need a huge favour, Steven. You’ve witnessed the effects of the Blood Moon, right?” asks Shane.

Steven shakes his head. “Never up close. Perks of living in a little hidey-hole like mine. Why do you ask?”

“I was attacked under a Blood Moon, and I survived. The other guy didn’t.” Ryan says grimly. “I got blood all over my shirt, or so I thought.”

Stevens brows furrow. “What do you mean?”

“Blood dries brown, right? The stuff on Ryan’s shirt didn’t.” Shane states simply.

“Hmm...interesting. Do you have the shirt here?”

“Yeah.”

“Great, let’s take a look,” Steven says, and he’s already striding over to a huge wooden table, covered in a canvas sheet. He hums to himself as he shifts books, glassware and a beaker of some pungent, smoking green liquid. Ryan produces the shirt from his satchel, laying it on the table.

“Mmm...this is definitely weird.” Steven mutters, mulling over the stained garment.

“Can you tell us what this stuff is?” Shane asks. Steven shakes his head apologetically.

“I’m afraid it’s not that simple. I have to run a few more tests. But what I _can_ do,” Steven abruptly rises, opening and closing cupboard doors at a a speed theoretically impossible for humankind, “is a little party trick invented in 1903. They call it the _Kastle-Meyer Test_.” Steven proudly flourishes three bottles of clear liquid, a cotton swab and a test tube.

“What does that do?” Ryan asks, already peering at the faded labels on the bottles.

“You’ll see soon enough,” Steven flashes him a bright grin, and with all the grace of an artist or a performer, gets to work.

Dipping the swab in the first bottle, Steven swirls it over a particularly vivid red splotch, twisting the swab until it comes up fully crimson. He places it in a test tube.

“Hold that, please.” Shane obliges. Then, one after the other, Steven drops a tiny drop of clear liquid from each of the other two bottles into the test tube. And waits. Slowly, the clear liquid in the test tube flushes a pleasant shade of pink.

“So...what does that mean?” Ryan asks, almost cross-eyed as he stares into the test tube.

“It means that you boys were right. This is definitely not blood. Ta-da!” Steven gives the test tube a happy little swirl.

“So...if it turns pink, it’s not blood?” Shane says, perplexed.

“Ah, nope. The opposite, actually. The _Kastle-Meyer Test_ works by looking for haemoglobin, the stuff only found in blood. If the sample is actually blood, then the haemoglobin turns the indicator pink.”

“But it did turn pink at the end, though. Does that mean there, like, a little bit of blood?” asks Ryan.

“Nah, that’s something the air does. The mixture has to turn pink right away--” Steven snaps his fingers for emphasis, “-- to be a positive test for blood. This, my friends, is not blood.”

“Is that all it can tell us?”

Steven discards the test tube. “Yeah, that’s all it can do. But luckily for you guys, that’s not the only trick I have up my sleeve. It’ll take a while, but I’ve got a pretty solid plan. Can you do me a favour, though?”

The pair nod slowly.

“I need you to get me more of this red stuff. Can you do that?”

Shane splutters. “You mean, can we  where people were freshly _murdered_ , and get you more of this red stuff? Is that it? That’s all, right? Just _risking our lives,_ that’s all, right?”

“Look,” Steven tries, picking at his cuticles, “I know it’s a lot to ask--”

Shane scoffs sharply. “Uh, no _shit_ , buddy!”

“Okay, see, now you’re just being a dick,” Ryan glares at him. “What the fuck happened to putting a stop to this?”

“Yeah, I said I wanted to put a stop to this. Not try and get ourselves killed at every turn. D’you remember how we even got this in the first place? Huh?” Shane snaps.

“ _Yes_ , I do, you massive _dick_. So what, we’re just gonna stop?”

“Or what, risk our lives? Willingly go where horrible shit happened? Y’know, for all we know, this could literally just be _paint--”_

“ _Paint!”_ Ryan laughs, and sure he’s going to pop a fucking vein, because-- “Paint! Are you even listening to yourself?!”

“It makes sense!” Shane yells.

“ _Nothing_ makes sense! Why do you think we need Steven’s help?!” Ryan shouts back. “We _literally_ have all the evidence here! You said you wanted to find the truth, and here it is, and now what? We back off, just because it doesn’t make sense?”

“No, we back off because people _die_ , and I am sure as hell not letting either of us be one of those people!”

“Look, how about a compromise, hm?” Ryan seethes, _uncompromisingly._ “I’m collecting those samples, whether you’re in or not. And I’m getting to the bottom of this, whether you’re in or not.”

He sees Shane’s jaw work, and an unreadable expression pass over his face, dissolving into resignation. Across the room, Steven fidgets, watching the pair with an oddly intense stare.

“Should I...step out for a minute?” Steven raises his hand tentatively.

“No, it’s fine,” Ryan whirls around, aware of how fucking _passive-aggressive_ he’s being, but relishing it all the same. “ _I’ll_ get you your samples. Thank you so much for your help, man!”

“I-- yeah, no biggie. One question, though.”

“Yeah?” Ryan replies.

“Are you guys always like this?”

 

* * *

 

The pair walk in solemn silence as the sunlight dims. Frigid winds swirl snowflakes through the air like confetti. The floor is carpeted in white, so clean and brilliant that Ryan can almost forget the way even the houses look like they’re dying, shuttered and hunchbacked under the weight of something unspeakable.

Shane speaks, so abruptly it’s jarring. “I’ll go with you.”

Ryan does a double-take. “What?”

“I said, I’ll go with you. To collect the red stuff.” Shane doesn’t look at him, staring straight ahead as they walk back to the bakery. Fair enough. Ryan shoves his freezing fingers deeper into his pockets, and shrugs.

“You don’t need to. Like you said, it’s dangerous.”

“That’s why I’m going with you.” Shane still doesn’t look at him.

Ryan swallows. There’s a lump in his throat, and then there isn’t. “Why?”

Shane shrugs. “I’m pretty scary.”

He finally turns to look at Ryan, and his eyes are crinkled in a...a smile?

Ryan tentatively returns the smile. “Neither of us can fight, you know that, right?”

“Well, sure you can’t, but if you tried to attack someone, and they turned around and started doing this?--” Shane towers over him, flailing his arms with a crazed look in his eyes, and Ryan can’t hold back a laugh. “-- You’d run! You’d freak out! It’s horrifying!” Shane lunges at him playfully, and Ryan elbows him, breathless with laughter.

“Oh-- oh shit, yeah-- _hahaha_ , Jesus Christ, yeah, you made your point--” Ryan clutches his middle, still laughing. “You’d have to be an idiot to mess with _the boys_.”

“The boys?” Shane laughs incredulously at the nickname.

“Yeah. That’s us,” Ryan beams. “The boys are gonna investigate, put a stop to this, and--”  
“Wait, Ryan-- Ryan, _shut up_ \--”

“What?” Ryan snaps. Suddenly, Shane’s eyes are owlish, terrified in a way Ryan’s never seen before. When he speaks, his voice is so thin it could shatter.

_“What time is it?”_

Ryan blinks. “Huh?”

“We have to go.” Shane says again, and only now does dread run an icy finger down Ryan’s spine.

“ _Shit_ .” His mouth goes dry as the first beams of blood-coloured moonlight spatter the horizon. Shadows grow deep and cavernous, hollowing the streets and houses out till they’re nothing but crimson skeletons shrouded in darkness. _Shit shit shit shit--_

Beside him, there’s a cry of agony, and Shane’s hunched over, holding his head. His breaths come in ragged, animalistic groans, guttural and entirely too fast.

“Shane? A--are you okay? C’mon, man, we’re just round the corner, can you hold out till then?” And _fuck_ , Ryan thinks, because his voice is wavering and so, so _small._ He can’t freak out now. Not like this. They’re so close to ending this, once and for all, and Ryan just needs to stay calm, get both of them back to the house, stay _alive_ \--

 

Something _growls_.

 

It’s Shane.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was a VERY LONG CHAPTER.
> 
> The Kastle-Meyer Test is a real thing, go look it up! It was invented in 1903, and was the precursor to modern criminal investigation methods. Oh, and it can literally just be done with some H2O2 and Phenolphthalin, the colourless form of Phenolphthalein-- a very, very common chemical indicator. 
> 
> Also! I tried to format the little "Ryan's Notebook" section like the actual Unsolved research notes (on the unsolved website) and I gotta say, who tf writes notes in FULL SENTENCES and without using sub-points, sub-sub-points???


End file.
